


Time in a Klein Bottle

by treewishes



Category: Back to the Future (Movies)
Genre: Condensed matter physics, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:08:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treewishes/pseuds/treewishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just as Marty was ready to head out the door, he stopped, thinking about that day five years ago. They had tripped through the future and the past, and he couldn't help but remember everything that could have-- no, everything that really did go wrong.  He tore off a page of printer paper and scribbled a note to Jennifer.  He left it on his desk, but with any luck, he'd be back before anyone knew he was gone. Unless something went wrong, of course, and then he wouldn't be back at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time in a Klein Bottle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kariszma83](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kariszma83/gifts).



> Thanks so much for stellar beta help from Libitina, Afrikate, and Lightgetsin!

Marty headed out into the sunshine and glanced at his watch. Wow, he'd have to hoof it to make it to his condensed matter theory class. He skipped down the steps and took off at a jog, missing his skateboard for the first time in ages. Sad to say his old wheels were frowned upon for a graduate student, especially at the most prestigious technical school on the West Coast.

He headed for the shortcut around the pond and--

And then he was flat on his back. He barely had time to utter "What the--" when suddenly, out of nowhere, there was Doc. 

"Doc!" He sat up. 

"Marty, there's no time!" Doc said, forcefully pulling Marty to his feet. 

"What do you mean," Marty brushed himself off, "You have a time machine, there's always time." 

But Doc just shook his head. "Not that kind of time, and not this time." He said, dragging Marty deeper into the bushes. "It could happen any minute!"

"What could happen?"

"Anything! Something! You have to listen to me." Doc was so 'Doc' that Marty had to laugh. He hadn't seen him since that awesome day, when they'd gone from 1985 to 1955 to the other 1985, and then to 1885, and finally back to 1985-- but here he was, and he hadn't changed a bit. 

Well, except for the jacket. He wondered when red plaid plastic would hit mens' fashions. He hoped it was far, far in the future.

"Look, here's the time scooter, it has the same control panel I think you're used to." Marty glanced down and was reassured by the familiar numbers flashing today's date and time: OCT 14 1990 12:50. It was a cool looking scooter, a little retro, a little future, with a sidecar.

"Sure, Doc," he nodded, half expecting Doc to unveil a scale model of the campus next. Unpainted, of course, as there wasn't enough time. "What's up? Where's the time train?"

"It's gone," Doc grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him right in the eye. "Jules took it."

"Your son Jules? That Jules?" Marty remembered a shy boy with Doc and Clara when they had left on the train. 

"Yes, of course, Jules. He's always been a curious kid, you know, and-- " Doc let go of his shoulders, stalked off a few steps, then turned and stalked back. "But who knew he had a philosophical streak? He didn't get it from me, it had to be Clara, but how could she let him--" He trailed off, looking up at the sky.

"What? What did he do?" Marty was truly curious at this point. Any kid of Doc and Clara's had to be absolutely brilliant, how could a kid like that get into trouble?

"What did he do? It's not what he did, it's what I did!" Doc stormed back toward him. "They were studying history, and they were discussing the atomic bomb, and I--" He shook his head. "I told him about my work here at CalTech, when I was a graduate student with Oppy."

He took a shuddering breath. "I don't want to go back to 1946, I told him," Doc's voice shook. "You can't change history, even though sometimes you wish you could. I was holding a glass of whisky at the time, you see. And he seemed to understand, but you know how seventeen-year-old boys are."

"Seventeen!" Marty looked up with a snap. "He was 6, maybe 7, the last time I saw him." And man, did he know how seventeen-year-old boys were. Impetuous, hotheaded, even a little stupid at times-- 

"... and when I happened to mention the date and time that cousin Verner came to visit--" 

Marty was horrified to realize he could see the dark green of the shrubbery through Doc's fading body-- 

And then-- pop!-- Doc disappeared. 

Marty sank down onto the grass. This was heavy.

He quickly realized what he had to do. He buried the scooter in the hedge and headed straight to the library. Doc had given him a lot of clues. He just wished Doc had actually, you know, _told him what the hell had happened_ , and what the _freaking date_ was that it did happen. 

Unfortunately, a few hours of research didn't tell him much more. According to Doc, "something" happened, sometime in 1946. He was pretty sure that "cousin Verner" was, in fact, Wernher von Braun, who was in the states by then. But there was no record of Wernher von Braun visiting CalTech at any time that year. There were no Wernhers in the yearbooks from the forties, either.

Finally, he realized there was nothing else to do but to go. He ginned up an outfit that would pass in the 1940s, grabbed his trusty handbook of _Sports Records 1940-1960_ , and tossed in the 1946 CalTech yearbook for good measure. 

Just as he was ready to head out the door, he stopped, thinking about that day five years ago. They had tripped through the future and the past, and he couldn't help but remember everything that could have-- no, everything that really did go wrong. He tore off a page of printer paper and scribbled a note to Jennifer. He left it on his desk, but with any luck, he'd be back before anyone knew he was gone. 

Unless something went wrong, of course, and then he wouldn't be back at all.

~~~~~~~~~

He skidded to a stop behind the Synchrotron Lab and was relieved to see that no one was hanging out in the loading dock. He heard the sound of glasses clinking, some high-pitched laughter, and realized there was a New Year's celebration going on over at the Cafe. That made sense, if the time clock was accurate. It was almost midnight on December 31, 1945. 

He would need somewhere to stash the scooter. He took a glance around, and the campus weirdly looked about the same as it had last night when he'd been on the electron microscope until 4 am. Hey, if the labs now were anything like the labs in 1990, he could just chuck the time scooter behind a dusty piece of equipment and no one would notice. Until someone decided they needed it for parts, but hey, that wasn't going to happen on New Year's Eve, right? 

He wheeled the scooter over to the physics building. The labs were a total mess, as usual, and he could swear most of this stuff was still in the same place today. He found a relatively empty spot behind some sort of furnace. Shouldering his bag, he headed up the stairs on reflex, and went to check out his office.

He almost fell over when he opened the door, because there was Doc, just like he remembered him from back in 1955. Marty rubbed a hand across his aching head-- time travel was so weird.

Doc looked up just then, and demanded, "What do you know about condensed matter physics?"

Marty shrugged, "A little." He walked over and leaned in to take a look at the papers on the desk. "Hey, I know that equation, that was on my last exam. I think I screwed up the denominator, though."

"That's preposterous!" Doc reared back, clearly aghast. "How could this be on an exam? I just derived it!"

"Oh, right, I, uh," Marty quickly turned to the window. "Hey, aren't you going to the party tonight? It's New Year's Eve."

"No, well, I might go later, there's never any benefit in being on time, you know-- in any case, this is too important." He pulled the paper up to his nose for a few seconds and slapped it back down on the desk, pointing repeatedly at the equation. "Look, just look at this phase balance!" 

"An offer I can't refuse, eh," he said, pulling up a chair. Whatever he was waiting for could happen in an hour as soon as 1946 began, or 364 days from now. He might as well figure out transport thermodynamics while he was waiting.

~~~~~~~~~

Within a few weeks, he had settled into just about the same routine that he'd had in 1990. Well, mostly. So much about 1946 was the same, but so much was different. The campus looked the same, but the names of all the buildings were different. And what was up with wearing a suit and tie to the lab? And Doc-- well, he wasn't a Doctor yet, so everybody called him Emmy. No wonder he'd dropped the nickname as soon as he got his degree. 

And the politics! That was another weird thing to get used to. People were all pretty touchy about the war and the bomb, and physicists were kind of rock stars. Once he realized that Oppy, the guy up in the 4th floor lab, was actually J. Robert Oppenheimer, he couldn't bring himself to call him Oppy, like Doc did.

He had managed to squeeze a small desk into the same lab as Doc-- er, Emmy--, the same lab Marty sat in back in good old 1990, and he felt like he was getting a really good grounding in physics. Most of the theory hadn't changed since then, but it seemed like here and now everyone understood it better. Or explained it better. Maybe because the ideas were newer? Whatever, he was going to totally rock his next exams when he got back to 1990.

When he wasn't in class or in the lab, Emmy spent most of his time asleep, so Marty had got himself a set of rooms across the hall from him at Mrs. Bloom's rooming house, along with Edwin and George from the chemistry department. He just hoped this meant he would be there whenever this thing happened that blinked Doc out of existence back in the future. 

While he didn't think about it every minute of every day, there were times he missed his old life a lot. He missed Jennifer most, even though he hoped she wouldn't even know he was gone. 

It was kind of fun being Emmy's best pal in 1946. Marty had picked up some cash at the track, so it wasn't like he couldn't afford a car or decent clothes. It was scary easy to be cool here, when he could pick the trends that would stick and ignore the ones that would disappear. And spending time away from school here was always a trip, like when Marty dragged Emmy to those terrific blues clubs in West Hollywood, and then Emmy dragged him to flea markets to buy antique clocks and pocket watches. They had even seen Frank Sinatra sing in a downtown piano bar.

But the best times were those late nights in the lab, just the guys, when they would all hang around til all hours and talk about particles and waves and the latest theories coming from Chicago and Boston. George would use liquid nitrogen to chill bottles of coke, and they would open up the big windows so the night air would keep them awake. He loved to listen to Emmy argue with all the conviction in the world why time was not linear, and then change his mind a half hour later and convince everyone it was synchronous. And then Oppy or Edwin would bring up Brownian motion or quantum mechanics, and the whole discussion would veer off in another direction altogether, and before they knew it, the sun would be coming up.

It wasn't the same as rock and roll or blue jeans, but what was? It was like he was stuck in a time warp and couldn't tell anyone what was going on. He couldn't even tell Emmy, who was the only guy who would believe him.

~~~~~~~~~

Marty knocked on Emmy's door. "Hey, sleepyhead. We're going to be late." He knocked again. The fall semester was just starting and it had been difficult getting back on a daytime schedule after the late summer nights in the lab. It seemed like Marty was always dragging Emmy to meetings or to class; Emmy didn't care, but Marty hated to be late. Mr. Strickland would be so proud.

He turned and almost ran into George at the top of the stairs. "Oh, Marty, he left already. Mrs. Bloom said there was a cable... I think he went to the train station."

"Well, why didn't-- whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Did you say train station?"

George rolled his eyes. "For those with hearing impediments, why, yes, I did. She said he was meeting the Sunset Limited at 8:15 this morning."

"This morning! This has to be it!" Marty glared at his watch, muttered thanks to a bemused George, and headed down the stairs. He sprinted to the back shed and tore the dust cover off of the time scooter. Mrs. Bloom thought it was some sort of experimental vehicle for his research, which, he thought, wasn't quite a lie. 

Ten miles and twenty minutes of maniacal driving later, Marty edged through the side door of the train station. He looked up at the timetable and saw the Limited was arriving five minutes early. Damn, he missed Amtrak. He ducked behind a column and peered around to see Emmy striding past him toward the platform. 

Okay, so, where was-- aha! A kid who had to be Jules was giving Emmy the same shifty look from the other side of the lobby. Marty ducked behind the seats, sidled around the newsstand, and quickly and quietly pounced, grabbing the kid from behind. Holding his hand over Jules' mouth, he hauled him out to the sidewalk for interrogation. 

"Jules," he started, and the boy's eyes widened. "It's me, Marty. We met back in--" Okay, it was too hard to explain either where or when they had met. "I met you with your mom and dad, on the train." 

Jules nodded. Marty let go of him, but kept a hand on his collar. The kid looked slippery.

"What are you--" Jules started, but Marty jumped in, "No, what are _you_ doing here?" 

Jules looked down, then up. "I'm here to-- to fix something." 

"Oh no, no, there is no fixing anything with a time machine. I am one hundred percent sure that your father told you that." 

"Maybe he said it, but he also fixed things! He saved my mother from dying in a canyon, and there are plenty of things--"

Marty held up his hand. "All right, fine. But not this time, buddy." 

"Why not? You don't know what he said!"

"Okay, true, I don't know. So tell me. What the hell were you thinking?" 

Jules set his jaw. "Look, my dad told me that his cousin fought for Nazi Germany in the war, and when he visited him at school, everybody said my dad was a Nazi, too. 

"And this needed fixing why?"

"Don't you see? He said everything went wrong from there." He shook his head. "You didn't hear him talking about it. You have to help me, just keep this von Braun guy away from my dad. We can warn him, he'll listen to you. We won't have to--" He stopped suddenly, clamping his mouth shut.

"Do what? I mean, your dad could have come back here, but he didn't. You can't just convince people about the future, it doesn't work that way."

Jules flushed red. "I know that, I did listen to him."

"So-- what, you were going to kill Wernher von Braun?" Jules stared at him. "Oh my god, you were going to kill one of the greatest scientists who ever lived to keep from hurting your dad's feelings?" 

Jules shook his head. "But being a Nazi is-- It's the worst thing you can ever be! I need to stop all that talk. To protect him."

"Jules. Listen to me. Your dad, well. Look, your dad is the smartest guy in the world. Smarter even than Oppenheimer or von Braun, and trust me, those guys are freakin' brilliant. So someone calls him a Nazi. He shrugs it off. That's what smart guys do."

Jules sniffed. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I don't, right, sure. Listen, punk, I know exactly what I'm talking about, because I went through this same stupid shit when I was seventeen. You can't just react, you have to think things through." 

He pointed over at Emmy, where they could see him on the open platform. A train was rolling in, coming to a stop. He would have to hurry. 

"If you change time now, you mess up all of history. Your dad came to me right after you left back in the future, told me he was worried and then he disappeared! Popped right out of existence! He, he just never was, Jules! Whatever you did when you came here meant bad things happened!" Marty tightened his arm around Jules' neck and dragged him over to the scooter. "You do this, and you'll probably disappear, too." 

Jules started to shout and tried to wriggle away, just as Marty predicted. He clamped a hand over the kid's mouth again. Thank god it was the forties and no one would cry child abuse. 

He gave Jules one more chance to cooperate. "Are you in or out?" Jules only struggled harder, so Marty, with the strength of his convictions, pushed the boy over the scooter and pulled out the handy sleep spray Doc had brought back from 2015. One whiff and Jules was out like a light. He loaded his limp body into the sidecar. "There. If you won't listen to me, maybe you'll listen to your dad."

Marty knew the time train was around here somewhere but he was pretty sure he had no idea how to operate it. And he couldn't risk waking the kid up. He only hoped it was locked up and still there if Doc wanted to go back for it later. He was just dialing in OCT 14 1990 12:55, when-- 

"Marty?"

He whipped around, and wouldn't you know it. Emmy.

"Marty, what are you doing here?"

"Emmy! Hey, uh, strange running into you. Here. Uh, now." He tried to shield Jules body and the scooter. 

"Marty, yes, it's very strange," he said, his brow furrowed in confusion. "How very odd that you're here at the very same time I am. You must come meet my cousin, Wernher." He pointed at the tall man talking to a porter loading luggage into a hired car. 

Marty breathed a sigh of relief at Emmy's distraction. "Oh, I don't think I have time right now. I--" 

"Who is this?" Doc asked, peering around Marty at Jules.

It just had to happen, he supposed. "Uh, this guy? This is my, er, well, a friend of mine has a son, you see, and he came here to visit, but-- anyway, I have to take him home." 

"Oh, well, do you need any help?" Doc offered. "We have a car, you see."

Marty shook his head. "No, no. Really, it's okay. His dad, you know, his dad is going to be worried, so I should, you know--"

Doc screwed up his face, clearly not understanding. "Whatever you say. I'll see you later, then." 

He made a move to go, but Marty couldn't let him. It suddenly hit him that this was it. He wasn't going to see Emmy ever again. "Uh, Emmy. Look, this is probably going to take some time. I--"

He blinked hard, realizing how much he would miss his friend. How much he liked Emmy's company, his funny gullibility, his razor-sharp mind. And that while he was pretty sure that Doc would be there when he got back to the future, Emmy wouldn't be. Would never be.

Emmy cleared his throat. "Well, until then. You'll write of course? We have to finish that paper on cheese theory."

"I-- I don't know, Emmy," and oh man, oh man this was hard. "It's going to get pretty complicated," he said, waving a hand over Jules and the scooter. "Hey, listen, can you pack up my things? I, uh, I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back." 

Emmy's eyes widened. "Well of course, I would be happy to help." He screwed up his face. "I'm not happy that you're going away, of course." He grimaced. "I'll have to pick out my own suits."

Marty couldn't stand it any longer. He reached toward Emmy and pulled him into a heartfelt hug. He was going to miss him so freakin' much. 

Finally, he pulled away. "You'll be fine. Stay away from plaid, though, okay?" 

"Sure, Marty. I'll see you-- well, when I see you."

"Absolutely, you will definitely see me, even if I can't say when."

A car horn sounded, and they both turned. The tall man was waving Emmy over.

"All right then, goodbye, Marty."

"Bye, Emmy," he said, swallowing. He couldn't believe he didn't have an exit strategy, that he hadn't planned for this at all. 

Marty waved as they drove away, then climbed onto the scooter. The crowd meeting the train was gone, and the street was empty. "Time to go," he said out loud as he pushed the start button. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was wheeling the scooter into the loading dock behind the Synchrotron Lab, wondering what the heck he was going to do with Jules, when he heard a shout behind him.

"Marty!" Doc's smiling face was a welcome relief. "And you've brought Jules."

"Hey, um, hey, Doc. It's so great to see you." He was definitely Doc now, rather than Emmy, with blazing white hair and a face that was 40 years older. But he still looked pretty spry. He wasn't wearing a 1940s suit, either, but strangely, Marty noticed, also not wearing the red plastic jacket. 

"Marty, it is just spectacular to see you again. Of course, I see you've arrived in time to get to your next class." And suddenly, it was Emmy smiling at him.

Marty grinned back. "It's great to see you, too." He held up his pocket watch. "You know how I hate to be late."


End file.
